The Lilies

The Lilies  

My parents were gone for the week, and my brother was at soccer practice, so I realized that I would be home alone for a couple of hours. I was walking home from school, and saw that my front door was ajar. My skin began to crawl with fright. Did I carelessly forget to lock it after I left? Afraid of who might be in the house or what I might see, I looked around to see what might be missing. Nothing? Why would someone come into my home only to leave with nothing? After searching throughout the house, I found nothing out of place and felt relief.

I walked over to the oversized window in the dining room at Ms. Jensen’s house. Jake, the little boy across the street was visiting her. Jake cared a lot about Ms. Jensen and was very concerned with her health after she became ill. She used to watch Jake when he was just a baby. He was a very nice boy, but he came from a troubled family and didn’t have much.

Forgetting the incident with my front door, I decided to walk over to Ms. Jensen’s house to see how she was doing. With a warm hello, she invited me into her home. I walked into her room which was cluttered with old books and dried out flowers. I noticed twelve beautiful white lilies sitting delicately on the right table next to her bed. They looked exactly like the lilies that my Mom put out before they left. I asked her where she had got them. She replied with a pleasant smile that Jake had brought them over to her as a “get well gift”. Suddenly Jake leaped out of his seat in an instant and said that he had to go home for a while to do some homework, but promised that he would be back to check up on Ms. Jensen. He quickly said good bye to us while running out the door.

After talking to Ms. Jensen for a while, she began to get very tired, so I tucked her in and gave her my phone number in-case she ever needed anything. Leaving her home, I thought about how sweet was for little Jake to be so concerned for Ms. Jensen. I walked into my...